A POEM ABOUT WHO WE ARE AND WHERE WE COME FROM

CANNIBALS

By Juan Fernando Villagómez

There are arrows carved of human

bone in crooks in caves, ritual hangings

on the trees – the flesh

of enemies.

Isn’t this our history– written on the

bodies as they’re put into the ground.

Like the earlobe pendants, molar necklaces

you saw men wear on television.

 It was the ocean-salted skin of sailors 

That turned my people blind. 

High-speed blood bursting veins,

diabetic, comatose,  

becomes genetic over time. 

Somewhere in the basement 

of my parents’ home, 

a hidden cave scooped 

out the mountainside

a coastal land devoured  

by the sea.

Will you find 

a spyglass, compass, undigested,

 lodged inside the ribcage

 of my great-great-grandfather’s 

great-great grandmother?

 

If you climb to the top of the hill, and stare

long enough, and if you have enough 

faith, it’ll make itself clear to you. 

 

A stain 

on the altar to the gods 

in the shape 

of a savage brother’s

savage heart.

(Juan Fernando Villagómez is a writer from Houston, TX. His work has been published in the Cincinnati Review, The Acentos Review, and Adelaide Literary Magazine. He is a member of the Macondo community for writers and was a finalist for the 2021 Keene Prize for Literature. His writing has received support from the James A. Michener Center for Writers and the Crawley-Garwood Research Grant. He holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Texas in Austin where he lives with his dog, Abba and two cats, Brick and Ghost.)